Patrick Petrella

Patrick Petrella is a police detective created by the British mystery writer Michael Gilbert who appears in six books published between 1958 and 1993, in both novels and numerous short stories. In his first appearance, in the police procedural Blood and Judgement, Petrella is a "probationary" Detective Sergeant at the (fictional) Q Division of the London Metropolitan Police. By the final novel in the series, Roller Coaster, he has become a Superintendent. In Blood and Judgement he is young and, apparently, not experienced in his non-professional dealings with women. He lodges at Mrs. Catt's, who cooks large meals for his youthful appetite. He drinks very little and is a dedicated bridge player. Very little personality or background come through in the first book; he is apparently fit and athletic but beyond that we know nothing of physical appearance. We are told early that he is considered by his superiors to be something of a maverick with a streak of somewhat unruly independence; as the book progresses he is shown to have a very strong and very stubborn sense of right and wrong—although he is a dedicated policeman to his core, with a strong sense of belonging to a brotherhood, he nevertheless goes behind his superior's back to unearth evidence that he feels is being unwarrantedly ignored.

Petrella's character combines an erudite and cultured background with a fiery ("Mediterranean") temper. He was born to a Spanish policeman father, from whom he gets his last name, and an English mother who gave him his first name. He was educated in Madrid, England, Beirut and Cairo. Michael Gilbert attributes reading the poem Who Has Seen The Wind? by Christina Rossetti, during a boring church sermon, as the inspiration for the first Petrella mystery.

BBC Radio broadcast two series of radio plays adapted from the novels in 2007, with Petrella played by Philip Jackson.